Roku UK: New Releases and Recommendations for 18th July 2014

This week we asked you for your recommendations to give you the chance to share them with your fellow streamers. We’ve included our favourite picks in this week’s blog, so you’re not just taking our word for it now when deciding what to watch!

If you have a suggestion for our next blog please use the comment box below or head over to our Facebook page!

As Recommended by You:

• Hemlock Grove (Series) – One cannot quench his all-consuming thirst. The other cannot tame the beast clawing its way out. In the sleepy Pennsylvania village of Hemlock Grove, two young men struggle to accept painful truths: about family, themselves, the mystery of the White Tower – and a terrifying new threat so powerful it will turn them from predators into prey. Catch it now on Netflix. Recommended by Anthony Thornton.
• Carrie (Movie) – Also on Netflix, a misfit teenager gets back at the classmates who’ve bullied her by unleashing her newfound supernatural powers and creating havoc at the prom. Recommended by Anthony Thornton.
• Penny Dreadful (Series) – Josh Hartnett, Eva Green and Timothy Dalton star in this chilling new psychological thriller which weaves together the origin stories of some of literature’s most frightening figures. Watch it on Now TV. As recommended by Sarah Grace George.
• OAP’s Behaving Badly (Documentary) – This candid documentary on Demand 5 meets a group of older people who refuse to let retirement slow them down. In Tenerife, they have created a ‘pensioners’ playground’ where they are blowing their hard-earned pensions and savings – as well as their winter fuel allowances – on a hard-partying lifestyle. Recommended by Jenni Livesley

Our Recommendations:

• About Time (Movie) – Richard ‘Four Weddings in Notting Hill, Actually’ Curtis writes and directs this typically cosy spin on Groundhog Day. At the age of 21, Tim learns from his father that the men in his family have the ability to time travel. Tim seizes upon his newfound power to win the heart of American beauty Mary (Rachel McAdams). But with each slightly botched attempt, he has to keep an eye open for the butterfly effect. Catch it on Now TV
• Parkland (Movie) – Half price on Sky Store, the chaotic aftermath of President John F Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas is recounted in this drama. Events unfold from the perspectives of the the staff at Parkland Hospital who treated the stricken president, the secret servicemen responsible for his safety, the brother of his suspected killer Lee Harvey Oswald, and Abraham Zapruder, the spectator who captured the fatal moment in the most famous home movie in history.
• Under the Skin (Movie) – Scarlett Johansson’s predatory alien takes on the guise of a young brunette to trawl the streets of Glasgow, tempting eager Scottish likely lads back to her lair in a derelict house… and a fate worse than death. Available now on Sky Store
• Champneys (Series) – Documentary following Champneys owner Stephen Purdew, as he leads a refurbishment of the company’s flagship resort in Hertfordshire with the help of a new management team. Watch it now on ITV Player
• Talk to the Animals (Documentary) – Lucy Cooke is a zoologist and animal explorer on a worldwide quest to crack the animal code and find out how animals communicate in their own social groups. Available now on BBC iPlayer
• Utopia (Series) – This second series of this Thriller has just begun on Channel 4. You can catch up on all of series one and the first episodes of series two now on 4oD. When a group of strangers find themselves in possession of the manuscript for a legendary graphic novel, their lives brutally implode as they are pursued by a shadowy and murderous organisation.